How Telecom Industry Can Conserve Energy
State of Telecom in Pakistan has a good post about telecom’s role in conserving energy and saving money.
Last year we saw Telenor and Warid vie in the media as the first one to install solar base stations. That was a start and the trend for green, renewable and more efficient solutions will continue. There is a lot more work to be done in the energy conservation and alternative reneable sources of energy for the technology and telecom industry. The infrastructure elements such as base stations consume significant energy and the data centers needed to run the IT operations are also major energy spenders. The infrastructure sharing idea promoted in Pakistan was also a good point in theory but its actual success has not been reported yet.
Typically, around half of the operating expenditure of a network company is spent on electricity, according to Ericsson. The proportion tends to be higher for operators in the developing world because their base-stations may be in remote areas, and therefore require diesel-fuelled generators. So the recent spike in energy prices has prompted operators to look for ways to cut costs.
The Economist ran a story about green telecom networks and ways to conserve energy in the telecom world. Good tips for saving energy from Economist.com include:
There are some relatively simple ways to reduce the energy consumption of a base-station. The first is to turn down the air-conditioning. Many mobile operators now run base-stations at a standard temperature of 35ºC, rather than the previous norm of 25-30ºC. Studies show that the higher temperature does not reduce the equipment’s reliability or life expectancy. “The biggest restriction is actually our technicians, who do not like going into the hut to work at 35 degrees,” says Andy MacLeod, Vodafone’s global networks director.
Operating at this temperature means ambient air can be used for cooling, even in hot countries. An air-filter is installed on one side of the cabin, and a fan is installed on the other, resulting in a steady flow of air. Vodafone plans to replace air-conditioning with this simpler approach, called “freecooling”, in the majority of its base-stations over the next three years, as part of a plan to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% between 2006 and 2020.
Conservation, Electricity, Energy, Environment, Green, Infrastructure
